“About,” I said.

“Then I didn’t own it yet,” Hubbard said. “We bought it eighteen years ago. No, seventeen. Seventeen?” He turned to Schwartz, who looked surprised. Hubbard looked annoyed at his counsel, but then reached out to pat his hand reassuringly. “Seventeen,” he said finally. “We bought it because the stock was depressed from a bad run of models, including the Courier and the Junior Courier.”

“I can believe it,” I said. “It was the last Metro model we ever bought.”

“They’ve gotten better,” Hubbard said. “I can send you over one of our latest if you’d like a test drive.”

“Thanks, but I just got this,” I motioned to my 660XS. “I’m not in the market.”

Hubbard smiled. “It’s funny because we’ve begun discussions with Sebring-Warner about a merger.”

“I read about that in the Post this morning,” Dad said.

“That story was only about sixty percent inaccurate,” Hubbard said.

“A-ha,” I said, and then looked over at Schwartz.

“What?” he said.

“That’s why you’re using an Ajax 370,” I said. “Market research.”

Schwartz looked at me blankly. “Very perceptive,” Hubbard said. “Yes, Sam’s been trying out some of the models, along with some other folks on my staff. There’s something to be said for hands-on experience, as it were.”

“Is this related to Abrams-Kettering?” Dad asked. “The merger talks.”

“Somewhat,” Hubbard said. “The government subsidy for threeps dries up at the end of the year, so right now we’re selling every threep we can put out there. But when January comes around everything’s going to contract. Merging’s a hedge against that. But I’m also interested in their R&D program, which is doing some interesting things.” He turned to me. “They’re doing some groundbreaking work in taste right now.”

“As in esthetics, or in, like, tasting things?” I asked.

“Actually tasting things,” Hubbard said. “It’s been the one sense that’s really never been well developed in threeps because there’s not a practical use for it. Threeps don’t have to eat. But there’s no reason why they couldn’t.” He pointed to my place setting, which was bare of food. “Your being at the table right now would be more natural if you were eating, and not just sitting there.”

“To be fair, I am eating,” I said. “Just in the other room.” And through a tube, which I did not say, because that might have been a little dark for dinner conversation. “And my seat cushion has an inductive charger. So my threep’s eating too, so to speak.”

“Even so,” Hubbard said. “Chris, one of the great goals that you and your family have tried to realize is the idea of making people see threeps as human. Despite your good work, there’s still a ways to go with it.” He motioned over to Carole Lamb, who seemed startled by the sudden attention. “Our colleague’s daughter has made that point for us just this evening. Being able to have a threep sit down to a meal and actually eat would continue that humanizing path.”

“Maybe,” I said. “I have to tell you I wonder where the food would go once I tasted it.”

“There are better ways to humanize Hadens,” Buchold said. “Like giving them back their bodies.”

Hubbard turned his attention to Buchold. “Ah. Right. Jim Buchold. The one person at the table whose business isn’t affected by Abrams-Kettering.”

“I don’t think you can criticize Congress of keeping Haden medical research levels at one hundred percent,” Buchold said. “We’re looking to solve the problem, not profit from it.”

“That’s noble of you,” Hubbard said. “Although I saw Loudoun’s last quarterly. You’re profiting just fine.”

Buchold turned to me. “Chris, let me ask you,” he said. He pointed to my empty dinner plate. “How would you rather taste your food? Through a threep or with your own tongue?”

Now it was Wisson’s turn to shoot his husband a look, and rightly so. There was no way this discussion was not going to get awkward, fast.

But before I could answer, Buchold continued on. “We’ve been working on research to unlock Haden’s sufferers,” he said. “Not to just simulate eating but to give Hadens back the basic body integrity to do things like chew and swallow. To free their bodies and bring them back—”

“Bring us back from what, exactly?” Hubbard said. “From a community of five million people in the U.S. and forty million worldwide? From an emerging culture that interacts with but is independent of the physical world, with its own concerns, interests, and economy? You’re aware that a large number of Hadens have no memory of the physical world at all, aren’t you?” Hubbard pointed at me. “Chris here experienced lock in at two years old. What do you remember from being two, Jim?”

I glanced over to Dad but he was engaged in a side discussion with Carole Lamb and my mother. He was going to be no help here.

“You’re missing the point,” Buchold said. “What we’re trying to offer is options. The ability to break free of the physical constraints Hadens live with daily.”

“Do I look constrained to you?” Hubbard said. “Does Chris?”

“I’m right here, guys,” I said.

“Then tell me, do you feel constrained?” Hubbard asked me.

“Not really,” I admitted. “But then, as you said, I don’t have much basis for comparison.”

“I do,” Hubbard said. “I was twenty-five when I was locked in. The things I’ve done since then are things any person could do. That any person would want to do.”

“You just have to borrow someone else’s body to do them,” Buchold said.

Hubbard smiled, showing his teeth. “I don’t borrow someone else’s body to pretend I don’t have Haden’s, Jim,” he said. “I borrow someone else’s body because otherwise there’s a certain percentage of people who forget I’m a person.”

“All the more reason for a cure,” Buchold said.

“No,” Hubbard said. “Making people change because you can’t deal with who they are isn’t how it’s supposed to be done. What needs to be done is for people to pull their heads out of their asses. You say ‘cure.’ I hear ‘you’re not human enough.’”

“Oh, come on,” Buchold said. “Don’t get on that horse with me, Hubbard. No one’s saying that and you know it.”

“Do I?” Hubbard said. “Here’s something to think about, Jim. Right now, neural networks and threeps and all the innovations that came out of the Haden Research Initiative Act have been kept to the benefit of Hadens. So far the FDA has only approved them for Hadens. But paraplegics and quadriplegics can benefit from threeps. So can other Americans with mobility issues. So can older Americans whose bodies are failing them in one way or another.”

“The FDA has kept threeps to Haden’s victims because jamming a second brain into your head is inherently dangerous,” Buchold said. “You do it if you have no other choice.”

“But everyone else should still have that choice,” Hubbard said. “And now, finally, they’re going to get access to these technologies. Among every other thing it does, Abrams-Kettering sets a pathway to getting these technologies out to more people. More Americans will be using these technologies in the future. Millions more. When they do, Jim, are you going to dismiss and belittle them, too?”

“I don’t think you’re hearing what I’m saying,” Buchold said.

“I’m hearing it just fine,” Hubbard said. “I want you to hear that what I hear sounds like bigotry.”

“Jesus,” Buchold said. “Now you sound like that goddamn Cassandra Bell woman.”

“Oh, man,” I said.

“What?” Buchold said, turning to me.

“Uh,” I said.

“Chris doesn’t want to tell you that my Integrator for the evening is Nicholas Bell, Cassandra Bell’s older brother,” Hubbard said. “I on the other hand don’t have a problem letting you know that.”

Buchold stared at Hubbard silently for a moment. Then: “You have got to be fucking—”